After Midnight

He put his head on the steering wheel, feeling like a complete and utter fool.

This was nuts.

Will texted back that he’d ask Penny. A few seconds later he texted a phone number and the word why.

Yeah, Shaw, why do you need her number? he asked himself.

He texted that he wanted to talk to Lindsey about the event they were working on at the lodge and wished Will and Penny safe travels as they headed home later in the day.

He was still sitting in his rented SUV, trying to figure out which of the many slopes she’d been taking a run on this morning, when he caught a glimpse of her walking from her car to the lodge. She was wearing a pair of dark pink ski bibs and a cream-colored puffy jacket. Her Nordic blond hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, her hair held back by a ski band around her head.

She looked for all the world as she always had. As if nothing had changed.

He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking that maybe for her nothing had.

It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that prim-and-proper Lindsey Collins, darling of the Alpine ski community, might have used him to get her rocks off on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t the first time he’d been a woman’s illicit thrill, but on every other occasion he’d known what he was getting into. And he’d been prepared for it.

He’d thought Lindsey was different. He shut off his SUV, got out and followed her across the parking lot and up to the ski lodge and the après ski café. She sat at one of the tables nestled near the big fireplace and facing the slopes. The expression on her face wasn’t peaceful or serene.

She looked angry and lost.

Why was Lindsey upset?

Maybe he’d screwed things up when he’d taken her to his bed last night. Another sin to add to his list where this woman was concerned. He walked over to the bar, ordered two hot chocolates and then went to her table.

He set one down in front of her and took the seat next to her so he, too, could look up at the mountain.

“Carter.”

“Lindsey.”

She pulled the mug closer to her and wrapped her fingers around it, staring down into the whipped cream on the top like a fortune-teller searching for answers.

“What’s this for?”

“I’m not sure.” He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “I think I might need to apologize.”

“For what? I know I should for walking out. But my head’s not in the right place this morning. I might do or say something stupid, so I figured I better clear out until...”

He got it. This he understood. He’d spent most of his life clearing out and searching for answers that he still hadn’t found.

“No need. I get that. Let’s start over,” he said.

“How? Do we pretend we never met at seventeen? Or do we act like last night never happened?”

“None of that. Let’s just start the morning over.” He reached over and clasped her hand in his. “I’m dying to get up on the slopes. You want to go with me?”

“I... Really? I thought you’d want to take it easy.”

“I didn’t anger all the resort owners here by taking them on and demanding they let snowboarders on the slopes just to be a douchebag. I did it because when I look at that mountain I see something I wanted to conquer. Besides, it was elitist to try to keep us out.”

“I never saw it that way,” she admitted, staring down at their entwined fingers. “But then, Alpine skiing is accepted everywhere.”

“So want to take on the slopes? We can race for real this time,” he said. “Not against the clock but against each other.”

She slowly withdrew her hand and took a sip of cocoa. “I can’t.”

He leaned back in his chair and glanced at her. She wasn’t watching him but was staring at the mountains again. “I’ll go easy on you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t go down the mountain.”

“Why not?”

She shook her head. “You were my bit of fun last night, Carter. We’re not friends and I—”

“I don’t see that you have any friends here right now. Not trying to be mean, but it’s obvious—even to this bit of fun—that you need someone.” He clenched his jaw, trying to keep his temper in check. “I’d like to think over the years I’ve at least showed you I’m not a total loser.”

“I never think of you that way,” she said, turning to face him.

He saw something in her expression that he’d never glimpsed there before. It was something more than fear, and if he had to define it, he’d say it looked a lot like disappointment.

“I’m scared, Carter. I can’t go down that damned mountain, because every time I’ve taken the ski lift up there I freeze. I’m fine showing kids what to do in their lessons, but I can’t go down a big slope.”

His anger instantly cooled. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Lindsey was afraid? It didn’t jive with the bold, fearless woman he’d always known. She’d been throwing herself down the toughest, fastest runs since she’d been ten, or something. She’d gone over sixty miles per hour routinely, and now she was afraid?

“Okay, fair enough,” he said. “But we’re going to get you over your fear.”

She shook her head and took another slip of her hot chocolate. “I don’t think so. You’re sweet to suggest it, but let’s face it, the only thing we’ve ever had between us is an adversarial—”

“We have more now. We spent the night in each other’s arms.”

“That was sex,” she reminded him. “You always act like sex is just a physical thing. Nothing emotional there.”

“Was it for you?” he asked in a low, deceptively calm voice.

“Wasn’t it for you?” she countered.

She gave nothing away. Why was he surprised? This was Lindsey Collins, and she never let him have an inch.

* * *

LINDSEY DIDN’T WANT to talk about her fears with Carter. In fact, the only thing she wanted was a distraction. God knew he provided her with that.

“I’m sorry I feel like I’m not myself this morning. That’s why I left. I can’t explain it very well, not even to myself.”

“What can’t you explain?” he asked, pinning her with his penetrating blue-gray gaze.

“Last night, until the moment you arrived at my table, I was looking at my future and trying to figure out what my next move would be.” She sighed. “Last year at this time I was gearing up for a gold medal and setting my future, you know?”

“I do know. But things changed.”

“They did, and I ended up here in the bosom of some good friends and in the valley where I first learned to ski and started my world-champion path. I thought this was the place to press the reset button, but it didn’t work out that way. I couldn’t handle the slopes... I mean, not even the kiddie ones at first. Even now they still scare me.”

She tried to stop talking, but the words were just flowing out of her as though they wouldn’t be stopped. She’d needed to share this with someone, and Carter, as unlikely as it seemed, was the one person she was finally able to do it with.

“So the reset didn’t work,” he said, tracing the rim of his mug with his finger.

An image of him doing that exact same thing to her nipple popped into her head and made her squirm in her chair. Dammit. She never thought of sex this way. But Carter had changed her.

“No, it didn’t. I have seen a therapist and he suggested it was because reset means I can go back to where I was and that maybe somewhere in my brain is the thought that I don’t want to go back there.”

He nodded. “My therapist has often said that, for me, I have to keep moving forward. Once I master a skill, I need to find a new one.”

“That’s interesting... Does he have a theory why?” Maybe there was a clue in Carter’s problems that could lead her to a solution of her own.

“He does, but it’s very personal.” There was a glimpse of the real man. The one he kept hidden behind a curtain of sexy charm and outrageous dares.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “Didn’t mean to pry.”

“I brought it up. Just throwing it out as an option.” Resting an elbow on the table, he turned to face her. “I want to help you get back on the slopes. It will be a way for me to make up for any part of your crash.”

“I told you that wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, but I need to do this. Plus, and if you repeat this to anyone I’ll deny it, but when you ski it’s like magic. I love watching you on the slopes, and I’d hate to never see you ski again.”

“Why would you deny that?” she asked, touched more than she wanted to be.

“Because I’m a bad-boy snowboarder and I’ve got a reputation to preserve,” he said with a wink.

“Well, far be it from me to ruin that for you,” she quipped. But deep down inside the freedom she’d felt last night was starting to fade. It made her wistful and wonder how she was going to achieve what had seemed so possible last night. How could she change her life?

“You won’t,” he said slyly. “So let’s see... How’s the knee? Have you taken any runs?”

Lindsey shook her head. She thought of how she sometimes brought her skis here and sat as though she’d just taken a run, even though she clearly hadn’t.

Who the heck was she trying to fool?

“My knee is fine. No runs. I mean, I’m teaching the classes, so I am on the bunny slopes with my kids, but that’s not really skiing.”

“Not for you,” he said.

“No, not for me. But why do you care? I mean, really. Not that BS about feeling guilty about my crash—the real story.”

He leaned in close and shrugged. “Maybe I sense that’s the only way you’ll let me see you again.”

He was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him. “We’re on a committee together, Carter. We will have to see each other again.”

He took a sip of his hot chocolate. “I expected better—more from you than this.”

She held the same high expectation for herself. “I’m sorry. I think the combo of too much to drink, a very sexy encounter and confusion left over from last night are making this morning difficult.”

“You think too much,” he said softly. “I’ve had more mornings-after than you. Take it from me, you have to just shake it off.”

She didn’t want to shake it off. A part of her wanted to be the woman she’d been last night. That bold, self-assured, confident woman she’d been with Carter, the woman who’d believed in herself. Surely that hadn’t just been the champagne talking. The seeds of that woman had to be inside her.

She just had to figure out how to sow them.

Carter was offering her something by saying he wanted to see her ski again. He’d always been that devilish rogue who could needle her into doing things she’d otherwise pass on.

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